The present invention relates to computer operating systems and more specifically, to replicating or cloning operating systems to computers or computer systems that have different hardware configurations than the original cloned system.
For instance, programs have been developed, commonly referred to as “Drive Imaging”, “Disk Imaging”, or “Disk Cloning” applications, such as Symantec Ghost. They are used to copy the complete contents of a computer hard drive from a computer to another computer. The copy of the “Master” computer hard drive is referred to as a “Disk Image.” However, such images may generally be deployed only onto other computers having the same hardware configuration as the Master computer hard drive. If the configurations are not the same, the result is that the computer system receiving the disk image, will fail to work correctly. The result is often a system crash such as a “Blue Screen” or continual, looping reboot.
Attempts have been made to clone or copy computing systems. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,774, assigned to Hewlett-Packard, discloses a software transition aid for rebooting a target computer from a source computer. After a cloned image is received from a source computer and booted onto the target computer, the transition aid assists in properly rebooting the target computer. While this helps in booting the target computer, it does not necessarily result in both computers having identical disk images. Consequently, problems and errors associated with the computers interacting improperly with each other still may result.
It is currently necessary to create a Master Disk Image for each individual hardware platform in an organization. It would be advantageous to have a single disk image that would be able to handle a wide variety of processors and a wide variety of different manufacturers' hardware. The program should be universally usable with different programs, hardware, and computers. Such a program would be advantageous in minimizing the time needed to develop, setup and install a local network and also reduce the time needed to restore troubleshoot and restore damaged computer systems.